The Times Online has a list of the top off-target Bond moments. It's a lengthy list that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface. I re-watched Diamonds are Forever this past weekend, and man, is that a lousy piece of cinema. Daniel Craig's turn in Casino Royale indicates the producers are on track to let Bond live up to the potential the franchise always showed; but I'll wager that by the third or forth film they'll be back to ridiculous stunts and worse puns.

It's like vampire movies -- they're hardly ever any good, but I just like the concept for some reason, and every once in a while a watchable vamp flick comes along and temporarily renews my faith in the genre.

But, like all genre works, too many hacks enter the field because the tropes of the genre seem obvious enough that it shouldn't take a Hemingway to make a good zombie movie, or Western, or space opera.

Except that it does. Sue Grafton may outsell Dashiell Hammett, but no one's going to be reading her fifty years from now.

Tuesday, October 14

I'm not familiar with McGraw, but based on what I do know, he could probably have a good reason to do this for every album in his catalog. Here, however, McGraw is telling his fans that he is sorry that his record company put out another "greatest hits" album.

At least McGraw has the integrity to express his regrets. What other bands have reason to apologize for dud albums? Here are some suggestions, based on the idea that these are decent artists who dropped a piece of crap on fans and never said they were sorry for doing so:

Sunday, October 5

Wednesday, October 1

It occurred to me that the McCain campaign really should just bump Palin off the ticket in favor of Tina Fey. Half the country won't even notice; she'll make many fewer idiotic gaffes to the press; and could probably actually do a decent job.

Or even better if Obama replaced Biden with Fey, and Fey could debate Palin, in character, just repeating everything Palin says.